Philippine Folk Music - Popularity

Popularity

Unlike folk music in Ireland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and neighbouring Malaysia, traditional music in the Philippines has never reached contemporary popularity. Perhaps, it is partly due to the fact every region of the Philippines has its own language, and several decades of Americanisation.

Though some groups tried to collect songs from the different ethnolinguistic groups, none has so far succeeded in making traditional music a part of the national identity, much more a national symbol. It is rarely taught in Elementary school, as in Ireland, aside from Children's songs. This results in a mentality that traditional songs are children's songs.

The decline was accelerated with the entry of television, making popular culture from Europe and the United States easily accessible to a common Filipino. Though most Europeans would say that Filipinos are music-loving people, traditional music is always at risk of being left in oblivion.

Attempts have been made to collect and preserve Traditional Philippine Music but most of them focus only on the Vocal form. Under the 400 years of Spanish colonization of the Philippines, no collection of the traditional music was ever made. There are however studies made regarding this subject in the late 19th Century, when the Romanticists of Europe began to find the value of folk songs.

Even during the American Era, attempts to collect traditional music came rather late. Perhaps the first collection was in 1919 by Fr. Morice Vanoverberg, which is focused on the traditional music of the Lepanto Igorots of the north. Unfortunately, only the words and not the tunes are included in the collection.

The collection entitled 'Filipino Folk Songs' by Emilia Cavan is considered to be the earliest collection with tunes, published in 1924. Perhaps, the most important collection of Folk Songs is the 'Philippine Progressive Music Series' by Norberto Romualdez published in the late 1920s.

Unfortunately, the collectors who worked with Romualdez did not present the songs in their original languages but rather translated them into English and Filipino. This collection also included some songs aimed to promote National Identity, like the National Anthem of the Philippines, Philippines Our Native Land and even Philippines the Beautiful (an adaptation of America the Beautiful). The collection also included some folk songs from other countries.

For a period of time, Romualdez's collection became the textbook for teaching music in the Primary School. It also ensured that folk tunes from every part of the country is preserved and will be passed to the next generation of Filipinos. Until now, this collection remains to be the most important collection of traditional music from the Philippines, since a copy of it is still available in major Municipal and Provincial Libraries in the country.

Other collections like the 'Filipino Folk Songs' by Emilia Reysio-Cruz caters to the so- called 'Eight Major Languages' of the country and according to some, the collection is the best representation of the songs from these ethnolinguistic groups.

Dr. Jose Maceda, former chair of the Department of Asian Music Research of the College of Music of the University of the Philippines, also did some collection which began in 1953 and lasted until 1972. This was followed by collections from his students as well.

During the last years of the 20th Century until the early 21st Century, Raul Sunico, Dean of the Conservatory of Music of the University of Santo Tomas, published his own collection. He began with publishing a collection of lullabies, followed by love songs, then by work songs. Finally, he published a collection of songs about Filipino women, a major topic of traditional songs from all the ethnolinguistic groups. All these collections were arranged for the piano and the words are given in their original languages. A translation is also supplied, not to mention a brief backgrounder about the culture of the specific ethnic groups.

Forms

It has the:

• Strophic/unitary form
• Binary form
• Ternary form
• Rondo form

With regard to traditional dance music, the seven volume collection of Francisca Reyes-Aquino is still the most important collection. None has yet followed her lead until now.